"...beautifully executed...strikingly attractive...a mix of playfulness and darkness." - The Tennessean
current show
Come to Your Senses!
January 14 - March 7
Meet the Artist Reception:
Thursday, January 21, 6:30-9:00pm
Great Neck Arts Center Gallery
113 Middle Neck Road
Great Neck, NY 11021
www.greatneckarts.org
previous show
Plunderland at Rare Gallery,
December 12th - January 16
547 West 27th Street, Suite 514
NY, NY, 10001
I would like to sincerely thank all of my talented friends and interns who have given their time and effort over the past year to make my illogical dream a reality: Mike Luckett, Brian Larimer, Emily Laird, Mark Hopper, Mandy Stoller, Katie Renneker, and Lindsey Eskind.
Plunderland
artist statement
I often begin a work without fully realizing why I have to create it, rather a strange inner drive to make solid that which is just dream-like subconscious internalizing all of the inordinate stimuli around me. It is usually only after I have finished a work that the total realization and comprehension of meaning behind the work becomes apparent. There are many different sources of inspiration behind the Plunderland installation. I chose to create the work out of crayons, because of their unique qualities to transform a space when several hundred thousand of the individual sticks are used, and also the way that darker, even ominous implications can be interpreted as playful when this children's implement is involved. There are several fairy-tale and even mythical inspired sources that inspired many of the sculptures in this installation. The technicolor vine, was inspired by the beanstalk from the infamous fairy-tale. This specific tale has a very dark and rather skewed moral view and particularly ironic timing, given the state of our economy, thanks to Ponzi schemes and other greedy plundering acts from those with power. The vine itself has come to represent my specific journey. Searching and climbing to that which is what I have imagined to be the prize. The technicolor and almost cable-like aspect of the vine definitely are a nod to the digital age. The animals and objects created out of just the ends of the crayons have a pixelated look to them for a reason. The White Rabbits are avatars for a human odyssey that has already gone awry. Each are missing something, either a lucky foot, or ear, or tail. I love using creatures from the animal kingdom to represent human struggles or desires. The once white rabbits, now flecked with oil, have climbed this vine, out of their hole into a space between the clouds where their footing is very unsure. The Cheshire-like beast resting on top of the vine above the yet unaware rabbits is intentionally playful, sexy, seemingly sweet pink, yet its limbs and muzzle are bloodied from a recent kill. Is the sexy, deadly beast sated, or waiting to pounce? The just-out-of-reach-prize of the golden fleece is resting on a loop of the vine. Of course, the dark mythical journey and history of the fleece is still being played out today. I myself, as an emerging artist climbing from obscurity to a place in the relevant, yet treacherous heights of the art world, can appreciate all of the irony from the uneasy vantage point of standing between the beast and desire.
